The Trade Princess Movement
The Trade Princess Movement is an entirely fan and player powered movement to create a female Trade Prince for the Bilgewater Cartel, the playable faction of goblins in the upcoming expansion World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. It started as a thread on the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm forum back in January 2010 by the player Sarpa and was originally inspired by the forum’s MVP moderator Frejya. The movement has grown in support from countless players, has broken multiple post limits, has mountains of fan art and fiction, is the second-longest thread in the forum and second-longest thread ever to not have a blue poster, is the sixth longest thread of all time is one of longest-lived threads on the Cataclysm forum. There is now a facebook group of 300 members and growing, and Frejya herself has shown support for the idea. The Trade Princess Originally nothing more than a vague concept, the once nameless female Trade Prince has now been well defined within the thread. There have been limitless ideas put forth, but these are the most important to the character players have already come to know and love. A quote from the original post says: “The general consensus is that she be named Mida Silvertongue (Mida S. Golden touch, get it? ;) ), nicknamed Her Tallest as Goblin leaders seem to often be a bit taller than the rest and as a nod to Invader Zim. She's a rogue, engineer, and could sell refrigerators to the Tuskarr. She also has a mutual platonic flirting thing going on with Vol'jin. She's clever, shrewd, and comical with a twisted sense of humor and an alchemical golden touch. A wild card.” Many other characters have developed out of this thread. The first was Her Tallest’s administrative assistant and secretary. Taken from the original post: “Her second in command has been named Bowie (now Kazit in Beta), as a nod to Labyrinth. He's her long suffering right hand man, lacky, and secretary and is a seemingly cool, collected alchemist fire mage with pyromaniac tendencies and fierce, unquestioning loyalty to Her Tallest. If ordered, he’d shoot himself in the foot for her. He is a bit disturbed by the Vol'jin thing. He’s always highly stressed, and no one really knows what goes on deep within that head of his.” Her office is also one of the primary defining factors of Mida’s character, as seen in the original post: “Her epic steampunk moving castle home includes a trap door laser shark tank in her office, a small legion of mechanical squirrels and clockwork shredders in business suits. Raids will require appointments (we all acknowledge that this one is a tad far-fetched, but we love it anyway).” Other minor pieces of her character include: - Daughter of a wealthy Baron from Bilgewater Port - Graduated from the Academy for Chemistry, Machines, Magic and Economics (A.C.M.M.E.) - Bowie graduated Suma cum laude from A.C.M.M.E.’s Centre for Research Into Fire and Explosive Studies - A somewhat unhealthy crush on Vol’jin (Her private chambers are filled with art, pictures, dolls, action figures and sculptures of him). - She wears a plate-armor tuxedo - Giant Core-hound pup as a pet - She is referred to as “My Tallest” or “Her Tallest,” and not by her name. - She is not a typical woman, nor can be classified by any one stereotype. The closest one is that of nerd-gamer girl with portions of a powerful business woman; with a grease-monkey, not-afraid-to-get-her-hands-dirty “Rosie the Riveter” personality. She also has hints of a flirtatious, maybe even spoiled, little girl mentality. - She has a pet Corehound which she bought off the Gray Market whom she lovingly refers to as "Fluffy". Important Things to Know #We assume that Trade Prince is a gender neutral title like President or CEO. While it's fine to alternatively call her a Trade Princess, her technical title would still probably be Trade Prince. #We have not received any blue posts in the original thread, but there have been many green posts (MVP moderators) and the thread has broken the post limit multiple times already. Considering we must ask for extensions upon reaching a limit from Blizzard, we choose to take this as a “silent” approval from Blizzard, to say the least. #We are aware Trade Prince Gallywix has been named the Trade Prince by the former Warchief Thrall. As Thrall says, however, he is only Trade Prince “For now." A majority of the feedback from players including those that have done the quest chain are now agreeing with what we’ve been saying since January (though his name was Trade Prince Maldy back then): Gallywix is a terrible leader. He tried to sell his entire race and cartel into slavery, hates the player, hired Southsea Freebooters to kill party guests, attempted to murder the player and former Warchief Thrall, was going to lose the election before the eruption of Mount Kajaro, is hated by nearly all the orcs, acting Warchief Hellscream included, as well as all the player-friendly goblins (a goblin freed from an escape pod calling him a monster and Sassy later echoing this sentiment ). These things together, along with a growing distaste for him, all seem to foreshadow his downfall as Trade Prince sometime in the future. #Sassy Hardwrench has been a favorite of many players to overthrow Gallywix, including by many whom had never even heard of our movement. She plays a vital part in the goblin starting zone quests, and goes off on her own to open a cafe in Stranglethorn afterwords. It is possible she is planning to overthrow Gallywix. She may not be Mida, but the primary goal of this movement is to simply get a Female Trade Prince, not necessarily our character. Both Sassy and Mida are the two leading candidates to overthrow Gallywix and become the new Trade Prince. If either of these two wins out, we can consider our movement a success. #Her Tallest has be put into the Cataclysm Beta! The NPC Boss Mida , and Kazit are in the goblin slums of Orgrimmar. She is in charge of all goblins in Orgrimmar, unlike Gallywix who overlooks the slums from his "pleasure palace" in Azshara. This is actually evidence in Mida's favor for being the next Trade Prince, as neither Gallywix nor Sassy are in a capitol city, but Mida is and already is in a significant place of power, which Sassy is not. Regardless, we from within the movement are extremely grateful for Blizzard's amazing shout out to our cause! Her Tallest and Feminism A very large portion of the support for this idea comes from those players that wish to see more females in positions of power and portrayed in more positive lights. Right now, many of the in-game female leaders either aren’t independent leaders (Jaina and Tyrande), are emotionally unstable and more resemble foils to their male partners (Tyrande and Malfurion, Jaina and Arthas, Sylvanas and Arthas) or play very much to sex appeal at the expense of characterization and involvement in the game. For more of the arguments, please examine the thread, as many in-depth conversations about proper female portrayal in-game have been brought up and the consensus is that it could and needs to be drastically improved. Because of this, support has been overwhelming for a woman who is neither a stereotype nor sex symbol; but rather powerful, independent, very intelligent, witty, physically strong and an overall complex fully-involved character with a highly active role in the storyline. In Cataclysm It appears that Mida has been put into the game as Boss Mida, , and is located in the Goblin Slums area of Orgrimmar. Bowie, it seems, has been renamed Kazit. File:Mida (Cataclysm).jpg|Her Tallness telling it how it is File:Mida's Chat (Cataclysm).jpg|Mida's Chat frame File:Kazit.jpg|Kazit - the best assistant ever! Influential Contributors *Frejya supporting moderator and original inspiration '' *Sarpa ''original poster and artist '' * Venezius ''WoWwiki page creator '' * Penneigh ''artist * Morharna ''artist '' * Denebvir ''writer '' * Dartertrick / Dziewanna ''artist, writer and generalized long-time supporter '' Fanart Gallery Mida Silvertongue by bluegorgon.jpg| by Sarpa of Moon Guard Tallest_Sketch_by_bluegorgon.jpg| by Sarpa of Moon Guard midabowie004.jpg|by Penneigh of Burning Blade Bowie007.jpg|by Penneigh of Burning Blade Midabowie005.jpg| by Penneigh of Burning Blade Mida.jpg|by Morharna of Ragnaros Bowie.jpg| by Morharna of Ragnaros Midasleepytime.jpg| by Morharna of Ragnaros Volmina.jpg| by Morharna of Ragnaros Emmp.jpg| by Morharna of Ragnaros Gobchoper.jpg| by Morharna of Ragnaros Original mida Dziewanna.jpg| by Dziewanna of Wyrmrest Accord Her Tallest by Ellemere.jpg| by Ellemere of Scarlet Crusade TALLEST01.jpg| by Denebvir of Thorium Brotherhood (adapted from Morharna's work) Fan Fiction *Her Tallest's Story, Part 1 of 13 (pre-release of the NDA, contains outdated names and information): http://deneb-vir.deviantart.com/art/Bilgewater-Part-1-159109953| by Denebvir of Thorium Brotherhood *Scheduling http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5871706/1/Scheduling| by Dziewanna of Wyrmrest Accord *Golden Opportunity http://whisperingsage.deviantart.com/art/Golden-Opportunity-160296388| by Venthos of Turalyon Trivia *The name “Her Tallest” is a reference to Invader Zim. *If put in-game, Her Tallest would be the first entirely fan-made racial leader, and it would mark the largest direct impact players and fans have had on character design, development and lore in the history of the game. *Her secretary, Bowie, is a nod to the movie Labyrinth in which David Bowie stars as the Goblin King. *The original thread is the second largest on the Cataclysm sub-forum. references External links * Original thread * Facebook group Contains more recent, up-to-date fan works